Germaine Greer calls for ban on supermarket alcohol sales

Writer and academic Germaine Greer has emerged as unlikely defender of the pub trade, while arguing passionately that supermarkets should be banned from selling alcohol.

Appearing on BBC's Question Time ​ last night debating Scotland's alcohol proposals, Greer made a passionate plea for an off-trade ban to to cut down on teenagers drinking and help stem the tide of pub closures.

"We just take the licences away from the supermarkets," said Greer. "They are the people selling alcohol below cost. The kids who go out at night, at weekends, are drunk before they go because they are bought cut-price alcohol."

Asked where people should go to buy alcohol, she replied: "You go to licensed premises. It would help our pubs.

"We lose, what is it, six pubs a day in Britain, because no-one is in them because they have got to be uncompetitive because of the way they have to charge for the alcohol that they serve."

She added: "I would love to see the look on Sainsbury's face. I would love to see Tesco's."

Greer got backing for the idea from Dame Shirley Williams who said that supermarkets using alcohol as a loss leader was "very disturbing" and she was sorry that it was "killing off our pubs".

"I like a drink in the companionable surroundings of a pub and they are going out very fast now which is a great shame," she said.